


Pretend

by mutedMahogany (mmuted)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Can be taken as platonic or romantic, Dead Dave, Dead Karkat, Death, Doomed Timeline, Implied Relationships, M/M, Offshoot timeline, Somewhat sadstuck, davekat - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-16
Updated: 2017-01-16
Packaged: 2018-09-10 16:04:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8923549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mmuted/pseuds/mutedMahogany
Summary: I don't know how he finds me or why he keeps coming back, but I'm glad he does. The afterlife gets lonely without him.
---
 
"How?"
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In which they learn to cope.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Super short, a little drabble. Prompt given to me by orangequest. Kind of warm-up writing.
> 
> POV Karkat.

He's been coming to see me for about a year and a half now. Just over half a solar sweep. I don't know how he finds me or why he comes back, but I'm glad he does. The afterlife gets lonely without him. Quiet.

Very quiet. Painfully so. The kind of silence that digs at you and makes you want to scream into the void if only for some noise.

The kind you can hear. The kind I'm hearing now, and it's making me want to turn and shout and hit something and I do turn, but then I stop and take a deep breath.

There he's standing, alone against a backdrop of blank white. Clad in red and in ever-dark shades that hide eyes that would match, ambient light from an unknown source casting a soft glow on him and making that strawberry blond hair of his look like it came from his stupid Earth Sun that humans seem to associate with good and holy things for some god forsaken reason, as bright and shiny and fucking perfect as it is. He as a whole is bright and shiny and perfect, actually. He's beautiful and I really hate it sometimes.

I expect him to tell me the date. He always does, when he sees me. It helps me keep my bearings on how much time's passed. I expect him to go into painful detail about what I'm missing back 'home' on the meteor, like he always does. I expect him to tell me how much he and the others miss me, like he always does, and complain when I say I don't believe him, like I always do. I expect him to follow the routine.

He doesn't, though.

Today, he just stands there. He looks sad, resigned.

"Dave?" Even to my own ears my voice sounds scared, soft, so I'm not surprised when he flinches a little.

"Karkat." He smiles a little bit. "Hey."

That's when he hugs me. That's when I know something's wrong, terribly wrong.

"Dave, what--"

"It was that English motherfucker, Karkat, the green pimp looking douchebag." His voice is a low murmur, more emotional than I ever recall him sounding. "It's over man. I'm here for the long haul."

We've all always known we weren't the ones who were meant to succeed. We've known since I keeled over and croaked half a sweep ago.

"How...?"

"Heroic." He sounds a little amused as he leans back, looking down at me.

"Of course. We've always told you that you'd be a hero." He's close enough to me now that I can see through his shades to the eyes behind, just barely. The red that I was hoping was there, isn't. It's been replaced with white, all trace of the crimson I remembered gone. I reach to move his shades, just to confirm what I saw.

For once, he lets me.

"We match," I blurt the moment the though crosses my mind, and he laughs. It's a nice sound and I hate that I want to hear that laugh forever.

"We have forever." He grins at me, I must have said it out loud or something. Otherwise he's a mind reader, which I really hope is not the case. "Hate that you like me but don't hate me, too."

"Nookwhiff." I lightheartedly punch his chest. "Don't flatter yourself, you're still the most pungent smelling sack of excrement I've ever had the great misfortune of stepping in. "

"Right, right." He regards me for a moment, looking a bit somber. I can't blame him, I was the same when I died.

I'm expecting him to try and insult me back, hoping for it. It would bring things back to normal, at least. Of course, he doesn't.

Instead: "Dance with me."

I blink. He had sounded emotional before, but now, the grief in his voice is palpable. It's painful. I realize that he likely wasn't ready to die. I wasn't either. Still, I ask for clarification on the request to dance. "What?"

"Dance with me and pretend the world doesn't exist."


End file.
